in all sorts of
roundabout ways, what you know already as well as I do. And yet, though
that is all it can do, you complain of not having had a letter! Not had a
letter? Beloved, there are half a hundred I have not had from you! Do you
suppose you have ever, any one week in your life, sent me as many as I
wanted?

Now, for once, I did hold off and didn't write to you: because there was
something in your last I couldn't give any answer to, and I hoped you
would come yourself before I need. Then I hoped silence would bring you:
and now--no!--instead of your dear peace-giving face I get this complaint!

Ah, Beloved, have you in reality any complaint, or sorrow that I can set
at rest? Or has that little, little silence made you anxious? I do come
to think so, for you never flourish your words about as I do: so,
believing that, I would like to write again differently; only it is truer
to let what I have written stand, and make amends for it in all haste. I
love you so infinitely well, how could even a year's silence give you any
doubt or anxiety, so long as you knew I was not ill?

"Should one not make great concessions to great grief even when it is
unreasonable?" I cannot answer, dearest: I am in the dark. Great grief
cannot be great without reasons: it should give them, and you should judge
by them:--you, not I. I imagine you have again been face to face with
fierce, unexplained opposition. Dearest, if it would give you happiness, I
would say, make five, ten, twenty years' "concession," as you call it. But
the only time you ever spoke to me clearly about your mother's mind toward
me, you said she wanted an absolute surrender from you, not covered only
by her lifetime. Then though I pitied her, I had to smile. A twenty years'
concession even would not give rest to her perturbed spirit. I pray
truly--having so much reason for your sake to pray it--"God rest her soul!
and give her a saner mind toward both of us."

Why has this come about at all? It is not February yet: and _our_ plans
have been putting forth no buds before their time. When the day comes,
and you have said the inevitable word, I think more calm will follow
than you expect. _You_, dearest, I do understand: and the instinct of
tenderness you have toward a claim which yet fills you with the sense of
its injustice. I know that you can laugh at her threat to make you poor;
but not at hurting her affections. Did your asking for an "answer" mean
that I was to wr